DISCOVERIES OF VEDIC ERA

For the first time in human history, definition of ‘Science’ which is called ‘Vijnana’ in Sanskrit, comes from Rishi Vashistha. His definition has been preserved in Rigveda’s seventh mandala wherein Vashistha talks about ‘Su̱-Vi̱jñā̱naṃ’ or the better application of science.

Indians of Vedic age were the first people of the world to use 'boiled milk and ghee'. The evidence comes from Rigveda's tenth mandala where Rishi Vasumana describes the sequence of milking from cow's udder and boiling on fire.

The 'Charaka' was the first physician of the world to specify daily use of tongue cleaners in his treatise called 'Charak Samhita' which is named after his name. Obviously, Indians were the first people to adopt tongue-cleaning every morning.

Indians were the first people to discover methods of indexing and enumeration and their applications. The credit goes to Rishi Shaunak who applied indexing in several works which contain various types of "Anukramankas" for protecting Rigvedic hymns from a possible interpretations.

Numerical tables (पहाड़ा ) are yet another key discovery of Vedic period of India. In numerous passages of Rigveda the Risis are seen mentioning parts of such a numerical table, however, its the Gritsamada Shaunak who provides a better and more complete table in the second mandala of Rigveda. He provides a table of ten running from twenty to seventy, i.e thirty, fourty, fifty, sixty and seventy in the ascending order. What is very strange is the development of reverse order table. The example comes from the Atharvaveda wherein Rishi Gopath is observed using table of Ten in reverse order i.e from ninety nine to eleven in descending order, which is the world first evidence of such reverse tables. Numerical tables reduces the brain-load since one can fetch result from the log term memory.

For the first time in human history, Rishi Atri mentioned in Rigveda, discovered the system of months and after his discovery, it became possible to figure out that it requires twelve months to make a year. In Europe, exact length of year in terms of months was not known as late as 4th century BCE.

For the first time in human history, the system of seven days i.e., the 'Saptaha' or the 'Weekdays' was developed by Rishi Jamdagni for sacrificial rites. This is noted by another Rishi Jaimini in his work called 'Jaiminiya Brahmana'.

In the Rigveda, at several passages measurement of the time is cited by the Rishis, however, Rishi Dirghatams Uchithya of the first mandala, provides an exclusive application of 'three hundred and sixty degrees of a circle' for the calendrical computation purposes. He states that in the celestial wheel, set together are the spokes three hundred and sixty. that means in his celestial model, each spoke represented an unit one degree, thus, three hundred sixty spokes represent three hundred sixty degrees.